Motives matter and may have implications for how people cognitively experience meaning through religion and spirituality. Specifically, intrinsically motivated people perceive religion and spirituality are more central to meaning in life, which should promote a tendency to adopt more coherent, expansive cognitive representations. In contrast, extrinsically motivated people may adopt narrower cognitive representations since their motivation is more proximally oriented. The present study tests these possibilities by examining how religious motivation relates to action identification (tendency to use coherent, higher‐level cognitive representations). Results from 630 participants revealed that among religious people, intrinsic and extrinsic‐personal religious motivations indirectly influence higher‐level action identification through strength of spiritual beliefs. These relationships were not evident among nonreligious people. Furthermore, extrinsic‐social religious motivation and religious service attendance did not relate to action identification. These findings demonstrate that religious motivation differences are consequential for the action identities people rely upon to form a sense of meaning.

中文翻译：

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宗教动机的个体差异影响人们的思维方式

动机很重要，并且可能对人们如何通过宗教和灵性认知体验意义产生影响。具体而言，具有内在动力的人们认为宗教和灵性对于生活中的意义更为重要，这应促使人们倾向于采用更连贯，更广泛的认知表现形式。相反，出于外在动机的人可能会采用较窄的认知表示，因为他们的动机更倾向于朝近端方向。本研究通过检查宗教动机与行动识别之间的关系（倾向使用连贯的，更高层次的认知表示）来检验这些可能性。630名参与者的结果表明，在宗教人士中，内在和外在的个人宗教动机通过精神信仰的力量间接影响高层行动识别。这些关系在非宗教人士中并不明显。此外，外部社会宗教动机和参加宗教仪式与行动识别无关。这些发现表明，宗教动机的差异对于人们所依赖的形成身份感的行动身份具有重要意义。